well today, oct 30, DERA helped re-establish a tent site for a few homeless on Glen, in Vancouver’s East Side on an empty city lot from which they had been kicked earlier this week. The city has not responded to the requests to find housing for these people, and despite threats tonight they are staying on that city lot until they recieve word on where they are to be housed.

During a court ruling earlier this month, testimony was given as to the dangers of sleeping on the street, such as hypothermia, and trench foot. These people are: in an act of desperation, attempting to keep what little shelter over their heads as is possible without housing; in order to protect themselves from the elements until that housing is provided.

As you can see from this 1886 archival picture, Vancouver City hall has even found itself run by homeless immigrants who lived in a tent city.!

Sometime overnight Saturday, someone detonated a large explosion next to the sour gas pipeline about 50 kilometres from the B.C.-Alberta border.

The blast did not rupture the pipeline, but blew a 1.8-metre crater in the ground, which was discovered by a hunter on Sunday.

The previous week, suspicious handwritten letters arrived at newspapers and a TV station in Dawson Creek calling EnCana Corp. and other energy companies “terrorists” for expanding “deadly” gas wells and giving the firms a deadline to shut down operations, including the gas plant served by the pipeline.

RCMP spokesman Sgt. Tim Shields called the blast a serious criminal matter but he stopped short of calling the explosion terrorism.

“It was set there … with the intent to blow up that pipeline. That’s a threat to the infrastructure of this province,” said Shields. “We’re not categorizing this as terrorism.”